Renowned artist Sliman Mansour, one of the founding figures of contemporary Palestinian art, died at 79 after a long illness, his family announced on Monday.
Born in 1947 in Birzeit, near Ramallah, Mansour emerged in the 1970s among a generation of Palestinian artists, writers, and poets seeking to rebuild national identity through symbols tied to the land and memory. Over more than five decades of creation, his paintings became embodiments of the Palestinian story: farmers clinging to the land, stone houses on hillsides, embroidered thobe dresses, and the smile of a young girl carrying hope for return.
Mansour studied art in Beirut and Washington, then exhibited widely across the Arab world and internationally. His works are now in museums and private collections worldwide. He received numerous awards recognizing his contributions to Arab and Palestinian culture.
His painting language was steeped in the region's ancient civilizations—Canaanite, Pharaonic, and Assyrian—alongside Islamic and Arab art, especially calligraphy and geometric patterns. Meanwhile, his childhood in Birzeit tied his paintings to everyday life in Palestinian villages: landscapes, farmers, traditional homes, and dress. He also absorbed influences from world art carrying messages of freedom and resistance, blending local materials with global resonance.
During the First Intifada, Mansour co-founded the New Vision group with other artists, shifting to use mud, straw, wood, leather, henna, and natural dyes in a boycott of Israeli-made materials. He once said this shift created an important bridge between post-Nakba art and the creations of younger generations.
For many Palestinians, Mansour's paintings were not just images but a visual archive of their cause. Critics and fans alike agreed that his brush carried the homeland.
